Tuesday, August 24, 2010

Global Annoucements

I don't have any food pics to share right now. Okay, well I do. But I'm saving them for later posts because tonight I want to let y'all in on a couple of important announcements, both involving countries other than the U.S.

Let's start with Voracious Vegan's "Souljourn for World Hunger." If you follow Tasha's awesome blog, you're probably already in on this one, but hear me out. Back in the spring, the lovely Tasha lived on 1,000 calories or less (all consumed in one simple evening meal) for seven days in an effort to bring awareness to the plight of the world's 1.2 billion chronically hungry people. During the seven days, she also spent her time researching the whys and hows of world hunger. Read about her journey here.

Now Tasha and Kendra Swartz Pepper of the Conducive Chronicle are asking others to join them on their next Souljourn. Beginning in October, participants may choose to live on minimal calories for anywhere from 7 to 21 days. If you're interested in helping, click through to Tasha's Souljourn post to sign up.

During her last Souljourn, Tasha discovered that the planet actually produces more than enough food to feed its inhabitants. The problem is unfair distribution. Here's what she had to say:

1 out of every 6 human beings alive does not have enough food to survive. The most heartbreaking thing of all is that it does not have to be this way.This chronic hunger is not caused by famine or lack of food; in fact we grow more than enough food to sustain everyone. According to Food First, our planet produces enough for each person on earth to have 4.3 pounds of food every day; 2.3 lbs of grains, beans, and nuts, 1 lb of fruits and vegetables, and 1 lb of meat, eggs, and dairy products. That is more than 3,500 calories per person per day, a generous amount of food that everyone could survive on. And despite what many people think, emergencies account for less than 8 percent of hunger’s victims. Chronic hunger is therefore not a matter of lack of food or natural disasters; it is a matter of unequal and unfair distribution of food.

Will Vegan Crunk be taking part? Unfortunately no. Though I'd love to bring attention to this issue through a Souljourn of my own, I have only a few months to finish my cookbook. The manuscript is due in January, and I can't take any time off from testing now. But if another Souljourn occurs after my deadline, I'm all in. I felt like linking back to Tasha's post was the least I could do for now.

In other global news, I wanted to let my Mid-Southern readers know about India Fest this weekend at the Agricenter at 7777 Walnut Grove. India Fest runs from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. on Saturday, August 28th.

This annual tribute to all things Indian will feature a ton of yummy vegetarian and vegan foods from the various states of India. Of course, there's some meat too, but we don't care about that, right? Participants can walk from booth to booth, each representing a different Indian state, sampling foods from every region.

If you're not local but wish you could go, never fear. I'm toting my camera along and I'll be posting about my Indian food finds on Sunday night.

6 comments:

Bianca, you are THE BEST! Thank you so much for including news about the souljourn in this post. I really appreciate it.

And yes, the Souljourn movement will be a yearly, or twice yearly, event from now on. So you will have plenty of opportunities to participate. But spreading the word like this was fantastic, thank you!

My name is Bianca ...

About Me

I'm a 9-year vegan, 19-year vegetarian from the Mid-South, not too far from the muddy banks of the Mississippi River. And that means cornbread, butter beans, and collard greens.
These days, I live in Memphis. Check out my cookbook — Cookin' Crunk. It's filled with yummilicious veganized soul food and country classics.